A cocker spaniel is traveling 4,000 miles to save one of her puppies with a pioneering stem cell transplant.
The brave mommy Coco is traveling all the way from Lancashire, UK, to North Carolina, US, to help her baby survive.
Coco gave birth to Millie 6 years ago in the UK. After this, the pup moved 4,000 miles away with her new owners to California, where she was recently diagnosed with cancer. Millie’s only chance to live is undergoing a rare stem cell treatment. Unfortunately, this treatment is not available in the UK, so it had to be performed in the US.
Little Millie is about to undergo a life-saving stem cell transplant.
Coco and her owner Robert Alcock, 52, live in Darwen, Lancashire. They traveled to North Carolina on Wednesday to reunite with Millie. The trip was funded by Millie’s owners, Serena and Andrew Lodge. They are also paying for the treatment, which will likely cost thousands of dollars.
Medics from the NC State Veterinary Hospital will perform the life-saving stem cell transplant on Sunday. In fact, this is one of the few animal hospitals in the world to offer this particular treatment. Briefly, the procedure is taking healthy blood stem cells from Coco’s bone marrow and injecting them into Millie’s.
Robert Alcock and Coco traveled 4,000 miles to help save Millie’s life.
“Serena and Andrew started chemo on Millie three months ago but they’ve been told the only chance they’ll have of curing her is if they find a positive donor so she can have a transplant. They contacted us, and we sent some blood samples for testing, along with samples from one of Coco’s other pups. They both came back positive, but because Coco is Millie’s mother the vet said she would be a better match.”
When Serena and Andrew found out about Millie’s condition, they immediately contacted Robert. They asked him if he would be willing to come to the US with Coco to help save little Millie’s life. Fortunately, he said yes and flew to the states. He said:
“The Lodges have paid for everything, and I didn’t like to ask how much the operation is costing but I think it will be in the thousands. We will be in America for about a week. Coco will go into hospital on Sunday for the procedure and then the cells will be donated on Monday.”
Coco reunites with her puppy Millie for a wonderful cause – saving Millie’s life!
If everything goes as planned, Coco will fully recover after the transplant. Sadly, even if the operation goes successfully, there is only a 50% chance Millie will be cured. That’s because this is a pioneering procedure, and doctors haven’t done enough similar transplants to know for sure what the results will be.
